The earliest paintball marking guns were used for marking in forestry and cattle ranching. Paintball marking guns are now more associated with a variety of targeting and simulated battle games (e.g. capture the flag). These guns launch a ball of paint with a frangible shell that is designed to hold the ball shape until striking an object after firing. Upon striking the object, the ball is set to break open leaving a paint spot.
Paintball guns typically employ a firing system powered by compressed gas such as air. Compressed gas is supplied from a supply tank which is mounted to or carried with the gun. The gun systems are equipped with pressure regulators which receive gas from the tank at a relatively high pressure and deliver gas at a reduced, more consistent pressure for propelling the paintball.
Prior art paintball guns usually consist of a bolt, a spring loaded hammer and a cocking handle. These conventional paintball guns have disadvantages since the hammer creates a kick back which causes the gun to go off target during rapid firing. Alternate types of paintball guns are more pneumatic in design. One pneumatic design is presented in U.S. Pat. No. 6,349,717 where a pneumatic piston is used to strike the valve instead of a hammer. The disadvantage of this type of design is that pneumatic piston still causes blow-back and an open pneumatic circuit directly to the gas source during firing operation. In addition, lubricant problems or temperature changes at the cylinder affect paintball velocity.
Other prior art pneumatic paintball guns include complicated firing mechanisms. Drawbacks of these more complicated types of guns include difficulty to operate and maintain, frequent breakdowns and high manufacturing cost. A common problem with all prior art of paintball guns is paintball breakage in the gun as the paintball drops from the paintball container (hopper) to the breach chamber and then is loaded to the barrel. In most cases, the paintball drops to the breach chamber by the force of gravity and during firing operation is being loaded to the barrel. In cases when rapid firing is perform, the paintball may be pushed to the barrel before the drop to the breach area is completed. Consequently, the paintball may be chopped. A paintball break in the gun not only causes a missed shot but also has a very negative effect on subsequent operations of the paintball gun because paint fouls the operating parts of the gun.
One other drawback of existing paintball gun designs is hopper mounting, normally on the top of the gun and positioned straight up or at a fixed angle with respect to the gun body. Paintball players usually position themselves behind the bunker to avoid being hit. According to the paintball game rules when a player's body or any part of his or her equipment including the hopper is hit, the player is out. In this situation a hopper sticking out of a bunker is not desirable. It would also be desirable to provide an improved paintball gun which has a hopper mounting angle adjustment.
In recent years electrically operated paintball guns have gained popularity due to a soft trigger pull where an electric switch is provided to activate paintball gun operations. Since paintball guns are portable devices, usage of low energy consumption electric actuators would be beneficial. Several electric paintball guns are equipped with a solenoid to actuate paintball gun operations. The drawback of using a solenoid is low energy output in the beginning of the stroke and low overall efficiency.
It therefore would be desirable to provide an improved pneumatic paintball gun with simple, efficient and robust firing mechanism with very few moving parts. It would be further beneficial for paintball players to have a gun design which has adjustable bolt speed to prevent paintball breakage.
Paintball capsules from different manufactures have different rigidities. A paintball gun which has an adjustable gas storage chamber capacity to adjust the ratio of firing pressure to gas volume in accordance with the type of paintball would be beneficial.
Finally it is a further object of the invention to provide a novel paintball gun that employs a low energy electro pneumatic flow valve and low energy use of linear actuators to provide more gun shots from single electric battery.
Paintball guns are available with either manual or power-assisted trigger mechanisms to control the release of compressed gas.